WD has refreshed several of their highly popular portable and external storage solutions, including the My Passport, My Passport for Mac, and the My Book, the latter which we will be looking at for this review. The newly designed external storage solutions feature a new modern, sleek-looking build that is noticeably smaller than the previous model as well as a generous 8TB in maximum capacity.
WD has refreshed several of their highly popular portable and external storage solutions, including the My Passport, My Passport for Mac, and the My Book, the latter which we will be looking at for this review. The newly designed external storage solutions feature a new modern, sleek-looking build that is noticeably smaller than the previous model as well as a generous 8TB in maximum capacity.
The company’s automatic backup solution, WD Backup, is also included. We’ve touched on this software in many of our WD reviews, indicating that it allows users easily manage all their content via a clean, user-friendly process. More specifically, the handy backup automatically protects all of your files on your computer with on-premise backups to a WD drive as primary storage. Off-premise backups are sent to the cloud, which is useful for increased protection and disaster recovery. You can also further protect your files using the included password protection and hardware encryption.
The My Book desktop solution is back by a 2-year limited warranty starting at $129.99 for the 3TB.
WD My Book Specifications
- Capacities: 3TB, 4TB, 6TB, 8TB
- Interface: USB 3.0
- Dimensions:
- Weight:
- Warranty: 2 years
Design and build
The new WD My Book is both smaller and uses very different design than the older model, as it now sports angled corners compared to the rounded front panel used before. In other terms, it looks a lot less like an actual book now; however, it still uses a 3.5" HDD.
The bottom part of the new My Book features a new textured groove horizontal/diagonal design that wraps around the device while the WD branding is imprinted on the front panel near the top. It's shiny build, however, is fairly easy to smudge
Like its predecessor, the My Books are fan-less, which makes the venting on the top panel very important so that the drive inside can rid its heat. The drive is also meant to be placed vertically alongside a workstation; it uses two rubber strips on the bottom to prevent slipping on a flat desk surface.
Connectivity on the back also remains the same: USB connection and power port as well as a Kensington lock slot.
Performance
Using the StorageReview Z640 workstation, we measured the transfer speeds from WD My Book using IOMeter. In our initial 2MB sequential benchmark, WD’s newly designed storage solution gave us read transfers of 171.59MB/s and write transfers of 171.27MB/s. In terms of random 2MB transfers, the My Book boasted read and write activity at 118.25MB/s and 90.0MB/s, respectively. In our final IOMeter test (random 4k transfers), 457.326726 IOPS write and 168.94 IOPS read.
To further test its performance, we also installed PCMark on the Z640 workstation. This is a tool that calculates the performance at the system and component level and most often represents typical home user workloads for all types of PCs, tablets, mobile workstations, and desktops storage solutions. While there are multiple categories that PCMark tests (including typical work usage, home usage, and creative usage), we will only be looking at Storage benchmark, which tests the performance of any drives installed in the system, leveraging traces recorded from Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office and a selection of more popular video games to measure real-world performance differences between storage devices. Here, the new WD My Book recorded a PCMark score of 2552 with a bandwidth of 10.45MB/s, results which were expected.
Conclusion
Overall, WD’s new My Book is a solid choice for the general consumer looking for a solution to back up a large amount of data, such images of their entire computer and large media files, leveraging a relatively large storage pool of 8TB. Moreover, the WD Backup software gives users will a seamless and easy way to manage and back up all their content to either the WD drive as primary storage, or to the cloud off-premises. That being said, all of this was possible in previous models of the My Book Line, as nothing else has been upgraded besides the new modern looking, more compact design. Though the more design-savvy consumers will appreciate this.
Diving into the performance of the newly designed My Book showed read and write activity at 171.59MB/s and 171.27MB/s, and 118.25MB/s and 90.0MB/s, during our 2MB sequential and random tests, respectively. In addition, the PCMark storage test recorded a score of 2552, while bandwidth hit 10.45MB/s. The results of these tests certainly indicate performance well-suited for its intended use case, which is a solution used primarily for the backup of cold data.
Pros
- New modern, compact design
- Easy-to-use backup software
- Good performance for its intended application
Cons
- No component upgrades
Bottom Line
Though only an upgrade in appearance and size, the new My Book offers mainstream consumers with a very reliable way to back up their content via a generous capacity point.
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